Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday slammed the Union Budget as a "band-aid for bullet wounds," saying that the Centre was "bankrupt of ideas".

He said solving the economic crisis demanded a paradigm shift.

"A band-aid for bullet wounds! Amid global uncertainty, solving our economic crisis demanded a paradigm shift," Gandhi said in a post on X.

The Congress earlier criticised the Union Budget as bereft of cure to "illnesses" of stagnant real wages, lack of buoyancy in mass consumption, sluggish rates of private investment, and a complicated GST system that the economy is suffering from.

It also accused the Narendra Modi government of appearing to offer "bonanza" to Bihar, governed by NDA ally Nitish Kumar, and "cruelly" ignoring Andhra Pradesh, another pillar of the same alliance.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.